Shabbat Parashat Tazria-Metzora - 5785

Shabbat Parashat Tazria-Metzora - 5785

Rabbi Hal Miller

  If a person will have on the skin of his flesh a s'eis or a sapachas or a baheres, and it will become a tzaraat affliction on the skin of his flesh, he shall be brought to Aharon the Kohen or to one of his sons, the Kohanim. [Vayikra 13:2]

  The Kohen shall look at the affliction on the skin of his flesh.... [Vayikra 13:3]

How is it that the Torah would mandate that tzaraat can only be identified by a Kohen? Can a non-Kohen doctor not recognize the signs? Is every Kohen an expert like a doctor? Yet the Torah is specific. As Rashi writes, "there is neither impurity of afflictions nor their purification except by the word of a Kohen." He calls it a chok, a decree for which we do not know the reason. Yet even in such cases we try to discover reasons in order to better apply the laws.

Talelei Oros brings the Meshech Chochmah that these afflictions are contagious, thus the person responsible for checking them needs a "special measure of Divine protection", meaning a Kohen. But we know that the tzaraat affliction is not contagious in a physical sense, so this must refer to spiritual contagiousness. This would put it in a category with idolatry and the "subverted city", but Kohanim are not required in the adjudication of those cases, rather a regular Sanhedrin. Why here?

Rav Hirsch differentiates between the investigation and the proclaiming of a diagnosis. He says that the investigation "can be made by anybody who is sufficiently expert and then the Kohen has to make the declaration in accordance with such diagnosis." Thus it is only the verdict itself of tamei or tahor that requires a Kohen, but it can be based either upon his own knowledge and investigation or upon what he is told by an expert.

A physical analysis of a physical affliction requires physical expertise, but the analysis of a spiritual affliction is what the Torah is speaking of in our verses. In this sense, a doctor or other physical expert would not be required at all. Thus Rav Hirsch continues with our second verse that the "Kohen has to concentrate his gaze on the nega and compare it with the skin of his unaffected flesh", not to see whether it is a physical affliction, but whether it is in the spiritual class of tzaraat. The Kohen must "concentrate his gaze" to see what the soul was afflicted for to know whether this is something that requires spiritual healing rather than physical. Such a determination takes the spiritual power of a Kohen, which although inherent in Kohanim, may require guidance of an expert who may or may not be a Kohen.

While idolaters do their best to sway people away from God, that attempt is based in logic and physicality. Regular judges can handle such cases. Here, the problem is a failing within the soul rather than logic, a failing of faith, and it requires a Kohen to see and understand it in order to adjudicate.